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Will The GOP's Short Attention Span Ruin The 2014 Midterms?

Fearing baldness, I long ago stopped scratching my head at the public moves of the Republican hierarchy. With Obamacare crumbling like a celebrity marriage all around them, the Democrats are so desperate that they're focusing on raising the minimum wage-a "feel good" bunch of nonsense that benefits an age demographic that isn't even old enough to vote for them. But they need people to talk about anything but Obamacare.

Savvy combatants don't fall for deflections, they look around to see what it is the other side doesn't want them to see. This year, the Republicans don't even have to look around. But, like ten year old boys with ADHD, that is all they seem to want to do.

Bravo, party betters. You managed not only to get off-topic, but did so with muddy message issues that aren't election winners.

Let us for the moment go all WIlly Wonka and enter a world of pure imagination. Suppose that the farm bill and immigration reform weren't fraught with problems. If you need to belt down a couple of stiff drinks to get there, I'll wait.

Even then, there isn't a good case to be made to take the focus off of Obamacare. And school choice is the one issue where conservatives can woo minority voters through principles and action rather than political pandering.

If I were a full-blown conspiracy type, I would posit that it seems as if the GOP leaders are deliberately focusing on things that draw bolder battle lines between them and Tea Party conservatives, than them and the Democrats. I am, however, not ready to go there.

Yet.

There are few people outside of the RNC, NRCC and NRSC who wouldn't agree that the Republican party has had a messaging problem for quite some time. There are a couple of reasons for this. The first is that it hasn't had many prominent elected officials who can articulate the case for, well, anything. Thankfully, that is changing.

The second, and more problematic, is that it chooses positions that are esoteric and/or numbers laden, which aren't easy to explain to the electorate.

The current state of Obamacare and school choice both practically explain themselves. They provide a clear path to victory in November but the party hierarchy keeps wandering off to do other things because...just because.

The current diversion is especially maddening, given the fact that the upper echelon of the GOP was just whining that the government shutdown prevented them from focusing on how awful the Obamacare rollout was.

The good news: the Obamacare rollout is still awful. Feel free to fire up that focus any time, guys.

I couldn't agree more. Every election cycle, it seems like the GOP is lured of topic with some divisive issue instead of playing to their strengths. The GOP is like a dog playing fetch that runs around looking for the pretend ball that their master pretended to throw, all the while he's laughing and putting the ball away.

FreedomWorks has signed onto the following coalition letter on reforming food stamps and other nutrition entitlement programs in the Farm Bill.An Open Letter to the United States Congress:Reform the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program by including Taxpayer Protections!

It might seem strange to suggest that the American educational system look to bourbon, but maybe that is just what they need. Maker’s Mark had a little lesson in free market economics this week, and schools should take note.

Today marked what was to be the final deadline for states to submit their plans for a state-federal partnership to set up a health insurance exchange in order to comply with ObamaCare. However, with 27 states currently refusing to set up their own exchange, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) now finds itself needing to set up its own exchange in each of these states before the statutorily mandated October 1st deadline.

The first part of this series focused on the various efforts around the country to establish school choice. This piece attempts to shed light upon the history of compulsory public education in America. As the nation debates the merits of school choice I’ve noticed a common theme in the arguments of the ideas’ opponents. They assert that the implementation of school choice would abandon a noble tradition with early roots in the American founding.

Mr. D and Mrs. R Smith are Californians working hard and doing their best to raise their young son and daughter. DS was raised with both public and private schooling, and RS completed all of her schooling through the public school system. When the time came to send their own children to school, however, they saw that the school situation was far from sunny and were concerned the public options wouldn't meet their child's needs. They decided that they would have to send their children to private schools.

Ohio Governor John Kasich announced his surrender to Washington spending gimmicks on February 4, calling for the expansion of Medicaid eligibility as part of his biennial budget proposal. Kasich, a Republican elected in 2010 and known as a fiscal hawk from his time in Congress, seeks to sell a key component of Obamacare as the pragmatic choice for Ohio.

Last week, I covered the first portion of my interview with South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley. In the next part of our discussion, Governor Haley relayed the efforts by South Carolina to improve health care in the state.

While the AARP was using their expansive membership and significant lobbying force to advocate for the Orwellian named "Affordable Care Act", who was looking out for the real losers in this behemoth new law?
Who are the real losers you ask? They are the young; the 21-29 year olds who overwhelmingly supported the government takeover of health care as well as enthusiastically reelected President Obama.

Now that Barack Obama has been sworn in for a second term, the focus will again turn to Obamacare and health care exchanges. A key component of Obamacare, health care exchanges are to be set up by the states giving consumers a limited amount of options to purchase health care in their state. Those that traditionally cannot afford to purchase health care will be given tax credits. Additionally, the federal government will also help cover co-pays and deductibles that aren’t covered by insurance.

Idaho is among the reddest of red states, and would seem to be an obvious frontrunner among the states resisting ObamaCare's health care exchanges. Indeed, Idaho Governor C.L. "Butch" Otter has long been a vocal opponent of ObamaCare, and even signed an executive order banning his state's employees from enforcing ObamaCare.